Jared W. Smith

This weekend I’m planning on upgrading to the latest WordPress (yes, I haven’t gotten to it the past two weekends) and installing some additional anti-spam measures on the comment system. At that time, I’m once again going to lift the registration requirement for comments for another week or two on a trial basis. Registration has traditionally been a method for me to weed out the trolls from those who wish to contribute, as well as be an extra barrier to spam bots who wish to use my site as a launching pad for illegal Viagra. Plus, it helps secure an identity to a person, so if a troll got really nasty and tried impersonating, it wouldn’t take an IP check for the public to figure out who the troll is and who the real person is. However, if this is too much of an impediment to livening up the discussion — and I have good reason to believe that it has been — then I’m totally willing to remove the barrier.

Registration will still be permitted and still be wholeheartedly endorsed as a good way to get involved in commenting. I may also look into a possible unified logon system that’s capable of working with WordPress. That may be down the line a bit, though.

Thoughts?

J

Tonight was Lowcountry Blogs’ Blog Party No. 2. It was a great, great time. Jason and I got to meet some outstanding folks with a very diverse array of talents, interests, and opinions. The organizer, Joan, already has posted pictures of the event. Yes, I’m the giant dork holding the camera phone in the midst of professional-level photography equipment. LOL. :)

Two observations from this event:

1. Out of the thirteen who were present, two of us were San Diego natives (me, April) and one had lived there for a significant period of time (Chuck). How about that? It’s so refreshing to hear someone say “It’s not Qualcomm Stadium — it’s JACK MURPHY STADIUM!” Hear, hear!
2. Charleston seems to spawn a deep interest in photography in many people. Both Jasons, Joan, April, and Chuck in particular were discussing gear and even showing off a little photographic gadgetry tonight.

The final count of people was as follows:

1. Me
2. Jason (SC Photogs)
3. Jason (Cavaliers and Roundheads)
4. Joan (a fantastic lady who worked hard to get it together!)
5. Vera (a knitting machine — four needles at once!!)
6. “Notoriously Nice” Mike (and yes, the nickname fits!)
7. Chuck (lived in San Diego, ex-Marine, really great guy)
8. Heather (has a genuine passion for blogging and gets lots of her friends involved)
9. Lisa (She shared my pain in trying to decide what to name her blog)
10. Mary (Lisa’s daughter — a real hoot, and a Stephen Colbert fan to boot! Word!)
11. April (San Diego native, Web developer, came to Charleston for the same reason my parents did)
12. JanetLee (Recently featured on CBS)
13. Windviel (his traveling Mustang blog is a fantastic read!!)

I must also give many thanks to our server tonight, Jeannie — she was absolutely fantastic and totally cool with our group. She took great care of us and didn’t seem to get the slightest bit flustered at the thought of having more than four people at a table, which seems to be a rare quality these days. Many props to her and Sunfire.

It was a fantastic evening, and I cannot wait for No. 3!

J

I saw on News Hounds a story about a FOX News crew who was fired upon today after reporter David Lee Miller gave away very intricate details of Israeli troop movements in Gaza. Check out the video of the incident at The Raw Story. Brian Kilmeade is stunned at the possibility that Israel would fire on the press. While that’s certainly not playing nice in terms of international protocol, for crying out loud, he was putting those troops in danger. I can’t say I blame the Israeli troops for their reaction.

Please feel free to have a look at planet.jaredwsmith.com and have a look at a lot of random feeds on the Internet(s). I’m going to continue to work to clean things up on that, as it’s a very, very rough draft at the moment, and bring the rest into the site. However, I wanted to get it going and make sure at least the basic functions are working properly. If you think you should be involved, and your blog has a functioning RSS or Atom feed, leave a comment or send a note and I’ll get you included. Let me know what you think!

J